Members of the Graduate Employees Organization picketing on the North Campus of the University of Michigan in 2008. Many University administrators and deans maintain these research assistants are not "employees."

U of M GEO

Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a request with the state Supreme Court to stop a hearing about whether certain graduate students at the University of Michigan can unionize.

But the hearing was held today despite the request, and is scheduled to continue tomorrow.

Sam Montgomery, president of the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO), believes research assistants are employees:

"They receive pay, benefits, they pay taxes on their wages, they are eligible for Family Medical Leave Act; they are treated as employees by the University’s own policies."

The U of M Board of Regents last May recognized the group as employees. But the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) found otherwise in a 1981 ruling. GEO wants to use this week’s hearing to overturn that ruling.